While national level OGP frames the world-wide debate of open government, the sub-national level of OGP aims at being much more specific, ambitious and especially applied to the reality of citizens’ everyday life.

There is the belief, among political representatives, that transparency goes in detriment to power: “if I am transparent, people will not need the government, and I will be useless”. This is just false. On the contrary, transparency builds trust, and with trust comes legitimacy and thus more power to make decisions and to do things.

Open government — and the Open Government Partnership — is a political project, not a tool. OGP needs to be a wider project of open governance which builds openness norms to survive political transitions. Political transition is a constant. If a program is good, new governments should adopt it and improve it.

Open government is about citizen oriented governance.

Making All Voics Count: Appropriating Technology for Accountability (2017)